LAHORE: In a Lahore Literary Festival (LLF) session tiled ‘Protecting the past’ the panelists discussed the role of governments, administrative bodies and civil society in protection and conservation of historical cultural sites and creating awareness on on the issue.

The panelists were Irina Bokova, a former director general of Unesco and Bulgarian diplomat, noted Pakistani architect Nayyer Ali Dada and an architect and former director of the Unesco World Heritage Centre, Franceso Bandarin. The session was moderated by Usman Sami.

Irina Bokova opened the discussion saying the key question is why heritage and culture are important. She says Unesco focuses on two basic tasks -- creating peace and respecting all cultures of the world, the expression of culture and the heritage sites.

She said the question also arises that how to involve government in protecting cultural sites, adding that civil society plays an important role in this regard.

She said culture was a part of sustainable development. She deplored that Humanities was not being taught as a subject in many universities, adding that culture and aesthetics were not only for the elite, rather for everyone.

There was a great need to create awareness on culture and heritage sites and young people and civil society could play an important role in this, she added.

Franceso Bandarin said cities are also important heritage sites. “Cities, earlier, were not considered as heritage sites. Then in 2000 urban Historical Management started; this approach was complex because living cities could not be seen as monuments, cities cant be frozen, so contemporary architecture was included in urban historical management,” he said.

Bandarin said we have lost balance in society and cities. Nowadays most of the historical cities face individual owners and rules and regulations were wiped out by the forces of the market, he regretted.

Nayyer Ali Dada said when one talks of cultural sites, it is a matter of creating awareness, which both the consumers and the decision makers lack. There is a lack of identity when it comes to cities and conservation, he added.

He deplored that after every two or three months a building collapses in Karachi. “Out of 100 buildings, only five percent give a reasonable look. We need to create awareness on aesthetics. Decision makers are into commercialism and have a bad taste. Hopes could be pinned on storytellers and writers that they spread awareness on cultural preservation through their writings.”

Mr Dada said cities just couldn’t be museums. “As a matter of fact, the protection of buildings is an important issue. However, control of cities was more with real estate mafia, and all the planning is done for the elite.”

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2026